My Thoughts on Comments

The following are comments on an article written by USA Today this past June about Hope Solo's 2014 arrest and the hopes that Team USA would make up for their previous lack of action by punishing Solo in this last summer's World Cup. I will analyze two credible and two non-credible comments I found in the comment thread below the article. 

COMMENTS LACKING CREDIBILITY

1. I believe that the fear that Robert is showing is disgust for bias in media. I think he might be concerned that these days you can't trust the media to write straight up facts and that it is all just "Complete. Rotting. Garbage."

2. I think Robert holds an anxiety about the lack of reliability in reporting. I feel like he probably believes that this article is an invasion of Hope Solo's life based on his statement that the report is "garbage".

3. This commenter comes across as lacking credibility to me mostly because of the complete lack of evidence. His comment has no explanation for why he holds this article in such a poor light and he simply states that it is "garbage" with nothing to back up his claims.

1. I think that Harry shares the same fear as Robert: a fear of biased journalism. He pretty much flat out states that this is the case when he says to "GET RID OF" the biased writers. 

2. It is my best guess that Harry values the pursuit of facts before judgement, and that no one should be judged without proper evidence. Which is ironic because that's pretty much what he's doing to this writer. 

3. The first reason I find Harry lacking in credibility is because of his spelling error. If you want to sound credible, at least make sure to read over your comment so you don't type "So" instead of "Do" or "BIAS" instead of "BIASED". And also just like Robert, he makes blanket statements without any evidence to back him up. And finally, with all the capital letters he is clearly heated up about this, and getting way too emotional like this makes his credibility instantly drop for me. 

CREDIBLE COMMENTS

1. All of these people honestly seem to be afraid of the media. David is also worried about people being judged too harshly or suddenly without any proof to back it up. 

2. David seems like the kind of guy that would value fairness based on his assessment that Solo was in fact suspended for 30 days. Also even though he isn't a fan of Solo, he still states what he sees as fair objectively. 

3. I find David to be a credible source because of his calmness and objectivity. He does not become fired up like Robert or Harry, but instead gives a levelheaded argument for his case. He also brings up other information to back up his case, something that the non-credible sources lacked. 

1. Once again, Bridget seems to be afraid of guilt without proof. She talks about how the need for evidence, and that shows her concern that the media portrays people badly without getting the whole story.

2. Bridget seems to value the right of innocent until proven guilty. I think that like David, she thinks that fairness should prevail in matters like this and that no one should be unjustly accused.

3.Bridget seems to be a credible source because of her logical approach. Again like David, she calmly asserts her opinion, giving a new insight to think about instead of just yelling about why she disagrees. I think that being able to put forth your assessment of a situation in a strong way while not losing your cool is one of the main traits to look for in a credible source. 

Later on:

Jon and Chad had very good insights on what makes a credible or non-credible comment. 

Jon had some excellent points on why he considered each of the comments credible or non-credible. He had basically the same view as me in that we believe that an important part of a credible comment is evidence to back up claims. He also helped me to remember the phrase "grammatically correct" which for some reason had been escaping me all week. However I slightly disagreed with him in the fact that I did not find the second comment he reviewed to be as credible as he did. I believe that the comment could have been much improved if the commenter had not only quoted the article in question, but also backed up their claims by elaborating on their point.  

When it came to Chad's post, like Jon he shared one of my views on credibility. The fact that calling names and getting overly worked up in your comment eliminates much of your credibility is an opinion Chad and I share. I definitely agreed with his assessments on the credibility of the comments, and thought he was very articulate in explaining his points. He also introduced each section of his post very well, and I think I could definitely learn from his ability to smoothly and effectively transition in his writing.